From Bloomberg: U.S. Credit-Card Defaults Resume Ascent as Unemployment Worsens (ht Bob_in_MA) Bank of America said write-offs rose to 14.54 percent … That compares with 13.81 percent in July … Citigroup’s soured loans rose to 12.14 percent last month, from 10.03 percent, while JPMorgan said write-offs advanced to 8.73 percent…

Note: this is not seasonally adjusted. There is a very distinct seasonal pattern for imports, but not for exports. Sometimes port traffic gives us an early hint of changes in the trade deficit. The following graph shows the loaded inbound and outbound traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and…

First, a nice mention in Newsweek (thank you): The Financial Meltdown in Words (see slide 4 for a quote from Feb 2005, ht Matthew, Eric) On the end of the recession, from Bloomberg: Bernanke Says U.S. Recession ‘Very Likely’ Has Ended “Even though from a technical perspective the recession is…

From David Streitfeld at the NY Times on credit card debt: When Debtors Decide to Default [T]there is a small but increasingly noticeable group of strapped consumers who … are deciding they will simply stop paying. … They are upset — at the unyielding banks and often at their free-spending…

Samantha writes in: I don’t understand why I need credit at all. Credit just gets you into debt and you wind up paying interest to other companies. What’s the point of throwing my money away like that? Samantha asks a really good question here – and in some respects,…